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Turkish here. This is unbelievable, but totally expected from the current "democractic" government. Social media usage is very high in Türkiye and people are c

Turkish here. This is unbelievable, but totally expected from the current "democractic" government. Social media usage is very high in Türkiye and people are coordinating using social media (mainly Twitter) for rescue operations in near realtime. I'm pretty much sure some people will literally die under wreckage because of communication interruptions as the result of this block. (For anyone telling to use VPN, yeah, many people are used to using VPN because of these blocks which also happened in the past, but not everyone is tech savvy and it's not reliable for life-or-death situations.

rayiner 4y ago
When you use quotes around “Democratic” do you mean the elections are rigged? I’m not familiar with the legitimacy or lack thereof of Turkish elections.
- anticensor 4y ago
  One incident even featured a pre-filled ballot indicating a vote for then-ruling parties.
  - gumby 4y ago
    Decades ago one of my profs described his voting experience in the USSR: they had a completely private (“Australian”) voting system where you picked up a ballot, entered a private voting booth, filled out the ballot, then deposited it in the urn. Or you could pick up a ballot pre-filled-in with the straight communist ticket to save time and just put it straight in the urn. Naturally anyone in the room could see which you chose. Perhaps more amusingly: he was an exchange student at the time (late 60s?). Because communism was a universal movement anyone could vote, so he thought, “well why not while I have the chance?”
- can16358p 4y ago
  They are not elected democratically, and they are not deciding on anything democratically, even though it is "democratic" on paper.
- remind_me_again 4y ago
  It's a very subjective judgement and everyone is entitled his or her own opinion. But that one is very biased. As far as elections concerned Turkish election system is very solid as a process and implementation is solid. In the end Erdogan lost Istanbul in the last elections even after that election repeated for only Istanbul, and worse for Erdogan, the second round was much more decisive. People didn't like the election were repeated. Also, don't fall to the expressions like, "Turkish here", "German there". These does not make anyone expert nor without bias.
  - toyg 4y ago
    Erdogan literally imprisons any opposition leader who comes close to be an actual challenger. He's done it twice already in the last 7 years. It's just not funny anymore. Some people in Turkey might enjoy living under a dictator (after all, many did in Italy and Germany, and many do in a lot of other countries today), but let's not pretend that water is not wet.
  - brian_cloutier 4y ago
    To give everyone an idea of how solid the process is: consider that the opposition candidate widely considered most capable of beating the incumbent president was recently sentenced to two years in jail and removed from politics on the weakest of pretenses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Ekrem_%C4%B0mamo%C4%9Flu https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Ekrem_%C4%B0mamo%C4... Here are a few other biased sources offering their subjective judgements: - https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2022 https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2022 - https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/turkeys-local-elections-were-not-free-or-fair/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/turkeys-local-elections-wer... - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud_and_violence_during_the_June_2015_Turkish_general_election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud_and_violence... - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index - https://www.idea.int/democracytracker/report/turkey/december-2022 https://www.idea.int/democracytracker/report/turkey/december... This is not to say that Turkey is full autocracy: the incubent president has a genuinely large amount of support and it's quite possible they would win a free and fair election. However, the upcoming election will not be free and fair as those terms are commonly understood.
- bbor 4y ago
  It’s not quite Russia levels of vote fakery, but rather similar to many other backsliding democracies - the incumbent is credibly accused of using their influence to insure victory. See “controversies” on this page, which describes the election where they modified the constitution to give erdogan completely unchecked power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Turkish_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Turkish_presidential_elec...
  - rayiner 4y ago
    The subject of that referendum—abolishing indirect election of the president and moving to direct election—is something that people want in America. And the close result on the referendum seems to match opinion polling. Maybe the referendum was rigged, I don’t know. But centralizing more power in the executive, if that’s what the people want, isn’t necessarily anti democratic.
    - bbor 4y ago
      I know “checks and balances” aren’t exactly written in stone by the Athenians, but they seem like an objectively good idea - I’d argue that any attempt to remove them is anti-democratic in a pragmatic sense. See: the situation in Israel as Netanyahu attempts to consolidate power away from the judiciary to protect himself from corruption charges. Also see: “ turkey accounts for 1/3 of the world’s imprisoned journalists” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Turkey
      - three14 4y ago
        The real story in Israel is more complicated; the courts have taken power from the other branches; it's about time for there to be some kind of correction, and is often the case, the rebound might very well go too far in the other direction, ruining the possibility of a real system of checks and balances. Netanyahu himself may be going along with it to penalize the courts, but it's unlikely to help his court cases directly. The idea that it's supposed to somehow magically help him is a talking point for some of the political parties, but he would probably need some kind of new legislation to grant him immunity.
- BWStearns 4y ago
  https://www.economist.com/special-report/2016/02/04/getting-off-the-train https://www.economist.com/special-report/2016/02/04/getting-... Erdogan famously remarked: "Democracy is like a train, he said; you get off once you have reached your destination"
- aintgonnatakeit 4y ago
  Erdogan is a fascist thug. He’s jailed most of his opposition.
- wgjordan 4y ago
  For one nonpartisan quantitative analysis, Freedom House gave Turkey a 32/100 ("not free") score on its 2022 global freedom scale [1]. [1] https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2022 https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2022
  - xyzzyz 4y ago
    Isn’t freedom house the same one who in 2020 gave top scores to countries that literally arrested people for walking around outside? That forbade people from running their businesses and customers from hiring their services? All of these restrictions on freedom might have been introduced for good reason according to some people, but they very much have been introduced, and very much restricted freedom, so if those don’t count according to freedom house, I can scarcely consider this “quantitative nonpartisan analysis” to be worth much.
- dalbasal 4y ago
  Not (AFAIK) the elections, but everything else. Highly restricted media (many journalists in jail) and now social media. Many opposition leaders, judges jailed, exiled or otherwise "purged." Over 100k of them. Constant fiddling with the constitution and election system to increase his own power. "Democracy," in the sense that refers to the democratic systems of government in existence, is a bundle. Elections without free press, expression, freedom to organize and such... That's no longer "democracy" in that sense of the term.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- ycombinete 4y ago
  free and fair elections require more than votes being tallied faithfully. They need all the other facets of democracy to function faithfully as well. Such as a free press, freedom of expression, etc.
TylerLives 4y ago
Is there anything specific about Twitter here, or is it just the most popular? I don't see why they couldn't do the same on Facebook, Telegram or some other platform.
- ejb999 4y ago
  probably because other social media sites have already proven time and time again they are happy to weaponize their platforms against a population if the leaders of that country ask them too.
cultofmetatron 4y ago
> For anyone telling to use VPN, yeah, many people are used to using VPN because of these blocks not to mention, imagine learning to setup a VPN (Beacuse your life depends on it) while you're buried under rubble..
- can16358p 4y ago
  Exactly. Imagine a government willfully ordering ISPs to block access to Twitter where people under wreckage are trying to reach for help using social media.
- MengerSponge 4y ago
  There's a very dark WikiHow article in the works here, or a SNL sketch
- xwdv 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - Sunspark 4y ago
    Radio signals do not penetrate through stone or concrete well which causes increased battery drain. You also have the issue of perhaps diminishing oxygen and cognitive impairment caused by shock and crush trauma. It would be better for battery life for people to just text a friend or family member and say "crushed under tons of stone at home, please send help". Nobody is going to do an AMA on Twitter while buried using up the precious battery life for retweets and likes.
    - xwdv 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - nyc_data_geek1 4y ago
        Seek help.
  - 4y ago
foronetimeonly1 4y ago
The Diyanet said "Do not look to social media for hope in finding loved ones, look to Allah". A few minutes later twitter was blocked. I think god is jealous of Twitter today.
- efnx 4y ago
  …so do nothing and forget about them in other words?
  - foronetimeonly1 4y ago
    Exactly. "God will save". Inshallah Tayipp will find himself hiding from 10 million furious Turks storming his 1,000 bedroom palace by the end of the week. It's time for this criminal go to jail or flee to moscow.
    - remind_me_again 4y ago
      [dead]
- kamaal 4y ago
  There's a joke that goes like this. There's a man who gets warning that his village is about to be flooded and he gets a warning he needs to evacuate immediately. He says he places his trust in god and decides to wait for god's help. A while later a tractor comes by and asks him if wants a ride out of the village, he tells them he places his trust his god to rescue them and tells them goodbye. A while later a bunch of cow herders and asks if wants a walk out of the village, he tells them .. trust.. god. Now water begins to come into the village. He climbs to the top of a hillock. A while later a few people arrive in a boat and ask him if we wants a ride out of the village, he tells them .. trust .. god. A while later he dies and then complains to god about help not arriving. God asks what else but help was the warning, tractor, cow herders and boat were? There's a joke in here that Twitter is how God wants to help.
OulaX 4y ago
The networks are already overloaded, introducing a VPN into the mix might even make them unusable for some people! Unfortunately, this is a tragic situation.
blagie 4y ago
Off-topic: Do most people there prefer "Türkiye" or "Turkey?"
- alex3305 4y ago
  There was an official name change [1] to Türkiye. 1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/2/un-registers-turkiye-as-new-country-name-for-turkey https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/2/un-registers-turkiye...
  - blagie 4y ago
    I'm very well aware of that. Whenever I've been on the receiving end of a name change like that, I (and everyone I knew) found it obnoxious. However, cultures differ. Turkey has a long history with name changes, and has been rather aggressive about them. When it became "Turkey," the post office wouldn't deliver mail unless the new name was used. Likewise, the capital has gone through two names since "Byzantium." I was genuinely curious about local reaction. I have no idea, from the other end of the world, whether this was imposed by Erdogan as a crazy policy to everyone's annoyance, or whether it is wildly popular. I assume somewhere in between.
    - dkural 4y ago
      [flagged]
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      They got fed up with Google search returning stuff about birds.
      - aendruk 4y ago
        Who is “they”?
  - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
    [flagged]
Mortiffer 4y ago
Also a lot of the big VPN brands are blocked so its hard for a regular person to get one. I recently helped someone out to get one required us to iterate through a number of providers each time me sending them the binary over signal so they can try it out. Spoiler: mullvad vpn was first to go through
anthk 4y ago
If you use a smartphone, get Briar from FDroid. It works over Bluetooth/Wifi/Data and it's perfect for emergencies.
- dividedbyzero 4y ago
  It's not available for iOS and you can only communicate with others who have it installed (which realistically will be next to no one). I wouldn't call that "perfect for emergencies".
  - anthk 4y ago
    THe rest of the world it's mostly Android based.
    - dividedbyzero 4y ago
      IIRC a quarter of all active smartphones are iPhones globally. I'm not in the US, lots and lots of iPhones in circulation here. Also, no Briar on nearly all of those Androids, so they're just as reachable as iPhones.
      - anthk 4y ago
        The APK can be fetched from FDroid and be shared over Bluetooth sharing. On iPhones, sorry, but Europe it's basically Androidlandia.
        dividedbyzero 4y ago
        > The APK can be fetched from FDroid and be shared over Bluetooth sharing. And people are supposed to just figure that out while under rubble? > Europe it's basically Androidlandia. Only Eastern Europe. Western Europe (incl Germany) and the Nordics have between 30-60% iPhones. [0] Also Albania, for some reason. That's also pretty much the browser distribution you get when looking at analytics data from various European countries, and it matches what I see people use here (Germany). 0: https://mezha.media/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/iPhone_Europe_00.jpg https://mezha.media/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/iPhone_Europe...

rayiner 4y ago

When you use quotes around “Democratic” do you mean the elections are rigged? I’m not familiar with the legitimacy or lack thereof of Turkish elections.

anticensor 4y ago
One incident even featured a pre-filled ballot indicating a vote for then-ruling parties.
- gumby 4y ago
  Decades ago one of my profs described his voting experience in the USSR: they had a completely private (“Australian”) voting system where you picked up a ballot, entered a private voting booth, filled out the ballot, then deposited it in the urn. Or you could pick up a ballot pre-filled-in with the straight communist ticket to save time and just put it straight in the urn. Naturally anyone in the room could see which you chose. Perhaps more amusingly: he was an exchange student at the time (late 60s?). Because communism was a universal movement anyone could vote, so he thought, “well why not while I have the chance?”
can16358p 4y ago
They are not elected democratically, and they are not deciding on anything democratically, even though it is "democratic" on paper.
remind_me_again 4y ago
It's a very subjective judgement and everyone is entitled his or her own opinion. But that one is very biased. As far as elections concerned Turkish election system is very solid as a process and implementation is solid. In the end Erdogan lost Istanbul in the last elections even after that election repeated for only Istanbul, and worse for Erdogan, the second round was much more decisive. People didn't like the election were repeated. Also, don't fall to the expressions like, "Turkish here", "German there". These does not make anyone expert nor without bias.
- toyg 4y ago
  Erdogan literally imprisons any opposition leader who comes close to be an actual challenger. He's done it twice already in the last 7 years. It's just not funny anymore. Some people in Turkey might enjoy living under a dictator (after all, many did in Italy and Germany, and many do in a lot of other countries today), but let's not pretend that water is not wet.
- brian_cloutier 4y ago
  To give everyone an idea of how solid the process is: consider that the opposition candidate widely considered most capable of beating the incumbent president was recently sentenced to two years in jail and removed from politics on the weakest of pretenses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Ekrem_%C4%B0mamo%C4%9Flu https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Ekrem_%C4%B0mamo%C4... Here are a few other biased sources offering their subjective judgements: - https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2022 https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2022 - https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/turkeys-local-elections-were-not-free-or-fair/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/turkeys-local-elections-wer... - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud_and_violence_during_the_June_2015_Turkish_general_election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud_and_violence... - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index - https://www.idea.int/democracytracker/report/turkey/december-2022 https://www.idea.int/democracytracker/report/turkey/december... This is not to say that Turkey is full autocracy: the incubent president has a genuinely large amount of support and it's quite possible they would win a free and fair election. However, the upcoming election will not be free and fair as those terms are commonly understood.
bbor 4y ago
It’s not quite Russia levels of vote fakery, but rather similar to many other backsliding democracies - the incumbent is credibly accused of using their influence to insure victory. See “controversies” on this page, which describes the election where they modified the constitution to give erdogan completely unchecked power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Turkish_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Turkish_presidential_elec...
- rayiner 4y ago
  The subject of that referendum—abolishing indirect election of the president and moving to direct election—is something that people want in America. And the close result on the referendum seems to match opinion polling. Maybe the referendum was rigged, I don’t know. But centralizing more power in the executive, if that’s what the people want, isn’t necessarily anti democratic.
  - bbor 4y ago
    I know “checks and balances” aren’t exactly written in stone by the Athenians, but they seem like an objectively good idea - I’d argue that any attempt to remove them is anti-democratic in a pragmatic sense. See: the situation in Israel as Netanyahu attempts to consolidate power away from the judiciary to protect himself from corruption charges. Also see: “ turkey accounts for 1/3 of the world’s imprisoned journalists” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Turkey
    - three14 4y ago
      The real story in Israel is more complicated; the courts have taken power from the other branches; it's about time for there to be some kind of correction, and is often the case, the rebound might very well go too far in the other direction, ruining the possibility of a real system of checks and balances. Netanyahu himself may be going along with it to penalize the courts, but it's unlikely to help his court cases directly. The idea that it's supposed to somehow magically help him is a talking point for some of the political parties, but he would probably need some kind of new legislation to grant him immunity.
BWStearns 4y ago
https://www.economist.com/special-report/2016/02/04/getting-off-the-train https://www.economist.com/special-report/2016/02/04/getting-... Erdogan famously remarked: "Democracy is like a train, he said; you get off once you have reached your destination"
aintgonnatakeit 4y ago
Erdogan is a fascist thug. He’s jailed most of his opposition.
wgjordan 4y ago
For one nonpartisan quantitative analysis, Freedom House gave Turkey a 32/100 ("not free") score on its 2022 global freedom scale [1]. [1] https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2022 https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2022
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  Isn’t freedom house the same one who in 2020 gave top scores to countries that literally arrested people for walking around outside? That forbade people from running their businesses and customers from hiring their services? All of these restrictions on freedom might have been introduced for good reason according to some people, but they very much have been introduced, and very much restricted freedom, so if those don’t count according to freedom house, I can scarcely consider this “quantitative nonpartisan analysis” to be worth much.
dalbasal 4y ago
Not (AFAIK) the elections, but everything else. Highly restricted media (many journalists in jail) and now social media. Many opposition leaders, judges jailed, exiled or otherwise "purged." Over 100k of them. Constant fiddling with the constitution and election system to increase his own power. "Democracy," in the sense that refers to the democratic systems of government in existence, is a bundle. Elections without free press, expression, freedom to organize and such... That's no longer "democracy" in that sense of the term.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ycombinete 4y ago
free and fair elections require more than votes being tallied faithfully. They need all the other facets of democracy to function faithfully as well. Such as a free press, freedom of expression, etc.

TylerLives 4y ago

Is there anything specific about Twitter here, or is it just the most popular? I don't see why they couldn't do the same on Facebook, Telegram or some other platform.

ejb999 4y ago
probably because other social media sites have already proven time and time again they are happy to weaponize their platforms against a population if the leaders of that country ask them too.

cultofmetatron 4y ago

> For anyone telling to use VPN, yeah, many people are used to using VPN because of these blocks not to mention, imagine learning to setup a VPN (Beacuse your life depends on it) while you're buried under rubble..

can16358p 4y ago
Exactly. Imagine a government willfully ordering ISPs to block access to Twitter where people under wreckage are trying to reach for help using social media.
MengerSponge 4y ago
There's a very dark WikiHow article in the works here, or a SNL sketch
xwdv 4y ago
[flagged]
- Sunspark 4y ago
  Radio signals do not penetrate through stone or concrete well which causes increased battery drain. You also have the issue of perhaps diminishing oxygen and cognitive impairment caused by shock and crush trauma. It would be better for battery life for people to just text a friend or family member and say "crushed under tons of stone at home, please send help". Nobody is going to do an AMA on Twitter while buried using up the precious battery life for retweets and likes.
  - xwdv 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - nyc_data_geek1 4y ago
      Seek help.
- 4y ago

foronetimeonly1 4y ago

The Diyanet said "Do not look to social media for hope in finding loved ones, look to Allah". A few minutes later twitter was blocked. I think god is jealous of Twitter today.

efnx 4y ago
…so do nothing and forget about them in other words?
- foronetimeonly1 4y ago
  Exactly. "God will save". Inshallah Tayipp will find himself hiding from 10 million furious Turks storming his 1,000 bedroom palace by the end of the week. It's time for this criminal go to jail or flee to moscow.
  - remind_me_again 4y ago
    [dead]
kamaal 4y ago
There's a joke that goes like this. There's a man who gets warning that his village is about to be flooded and he gets a warning he needs to evacuate immediately. He says he places his trust in god and decides to wait for god's help. A while later a tractor comes by and asks him if wants a ride out of the village, he tells them he places his trust his god to rescue them and tells them goodbye. A while later a bunch of cow herders and asks if wants a walk out of the village, he tells them .. trust.. god. Now water begins to come into the village. He climbs to the top of a hillock. A while later a few people arrive in a boat and ask him if we wants a ride out of the village, he tells them .. trust .. god. A while later he dies and then complains to god about help not arriving. God asks what else but help was the warning, tractor, cow herders and boat were? There's a joke in here that Twitter is how God wants to help.

OulaX 4y ago

The networks are already overloaded, introducing a VPN into the mix might even make them unusable for some people! Unfortunately, this is a tragic situation.

blagie 4y ago

Off-topic: Do most people there prefer "Türkiye" or "Turkey?"

alex3305 4y ago
There was an official name change [1] to Türkiye. 1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/2/un-registers-turkiye-as-new-country-name-for-turkey https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/2/un-registers-turkiye...
- blagie 4y ago
  I'm very well aware of that. Whenever I've been on the receiving end of a name change like that, I (and everyone I knew) found it obnoxious. However, cultures differ. Turkey has a long history with name changes, and has been rather aggressive about them. When it became "Turkey," the post office wouldn't deliver mail unless the new name was used. Likewise, the capital has gone through two names since "Byzantium." I was genuinely curious about local reaction. I have no idea, from the other end of the world, whether this was imposed by Erdogan as a crazy policy to everyone's annoyance, or whether it is wildly popular. I assume somewhere in between.
  - dkural 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    They got fed up with Google search returning stuff about birds.
    - aendruk 4y ago
      Who is “they”?
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
  [flagged]

Mortiffer 4y ago

Also a lot of the big VPN brands are blocked so its hard for a regular person to get one. I recently helped someone out to get one required us to iterate through a number of providers each time me sending them the binary over signal so they can try it out. Spoiler: mullvad vpn was first to go through

anthk 4y ago

If you use a smartphone, get Briar from FDroid. It works over Bluetooth/Wifi/Data and it's perfect for emergencies.

dividedbyzero 4y ago
It's not available for iOS and you can only communicate with others who have it installed (which realistically will be next to no one). I wouldn't call that "perfect for emergencies".
- anthk 4y ago
  THe rest of the world it's mostly Android based.
  - dividedbyzero 4y ago
    IIRC a quarter of all active smartphones are iPhones globally. I'm not in the US, lots and lots of iPhones in circulation here. Also, no Briar on nearly all of those Androids, so they're just as reachable as iPhones.
    - anthk 4y ago
      The APK can be fetched from FDroid and be shared over Bluetooth sharing. On iPhones, sorry, but Europe it's basically Androidlandia.
      - dividedbyzero 4y ago
        > The APK can be fetched from FDroid and be shared over Bluetooth sharing. And people are supposed to just figure that out while under rubble? > Europe it's basically Androidlandia. Only Eastern Europe. Western Europe (incl Germany) and the Nordics have between 30-60% iPhones. [0] Also Albania, for some reason. That's also pretty much the browser distribution you get when looking at analytics data from various European countries, and it matches what I see people use here (Germany). 0: https://mezha.media/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/iPhone_Europe_00.jpg https://mezha.media/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/iPhone_Europe...